All right, we're getting into debate on facts.
Mr. Poilievre, the summons issued for Mr. Togneri states particularly at the end that the witness remain in attendance until duly discharged, and that's why he appeared a second time. In fact, we had not completed with him and indicated after a second appearance that more members had questions and we wanted to hear from him. He is, as you can see, on our agenda for the day. He is the witness this committee called for today.
So Mr. Togneri is our witness. The rules of practice and procedure indicate that for a witness who refuses to appear—the summons is another element to it, but even if he had no summons—the committee cannot take any sanctions or censures against such a person. It has no authority to do so. Its only option is to report the facts to the House, and it would be the House...
Since we are only a fact-finding body and we don't have that authority, I want to give the committee an idea of the information passed on from the clerk directorate, which oversees all the operations and has the experience. In its suggestion, the report would say something like:
On Thursday, April 1, the committee agreed, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3(h)(vi)) and the motion adopted by the committee on the same day, to undertake a study on allegations of interference in access to information requests.
In the course of this study, the committee chose to invite Sébastien Togneri to appear before it. ... Sebastien Togneri appeared before the committee on May 6 and May 11, 2010. However, he refused to appear at the June 3 meeting.
In light of this matter, the committee has reason to believe that a potential breach of privilege has occurred, and on Thursday, June 3, 2010, the committee adopted the following motion...
That motion would be that we report it to the House. That is a suggested route. However, this does not occur without the committee making the determination that we should do it, that it is necessary to report.
Because the members don't have this, and in view of the seriousness of it, I don't believe it's urgent for us to deal with this right now, but I suggest we circulate this and allow the members to make the necessary inquiries or to look into it and to prepare to have that discussion about whether we report to the House and what we report to the House. That is the decision of the committee.
I would propose that we deal with that at our next meeting, which would be next Tuesday.
We have, as I had indicated...
Mr. Desnoyers, on a point of order, sir?